(Norm should, too, although he’s voted generally correctly over the past seven years).<\/p>\n
Senator Klobuchar:<\/p>\n
I know you’re busy – too busy to respond to your consituents<\/a>, indeed! – but I think you oughtta make time for this offer from Michael Yon<\/a>:<\/p>\n O<\/span>ne of the biggest problems with the Iraq War is that politics has frequently triumphed over truth.\u00a0 For instance, we went into Iraq with shoddy intelligence (at best), no reconstruction plan, and perhaps half as many troops as were required.\u00a0 We refused to admit that an insurgency was growing, until the country collapsed into anarchy and civil war.\u00a0 Now the truth is that Iraq is showing real progress on many fronts: \u00a0Al Qaeda is being defeated and violence is down and continuing to decrease.\u00a0 As a result, the militias have lost their reason for existence and are getting beaten back or co-opted.\u00a0 Shia, Sunni and Kurds are coming together — although with various stresses — under the national government.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh, and…:<\/p>\n \u00a0If progress continues at this rate, it is very possible that before 2008 is out, we can finally say “the war has ended.”<\/strong> <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yon is no administration ass-kisser, a fact that got him banned from the Hannity show; he’s always told it like it was.<\/p>\n \u00a0Whatever we do in Iraq from here forward, we must strive to make better decisions than those made between 2003 and 2006. \u00a0And one way to achieve that is by making certain that our civilian leaders are fully informed.\u00a0 All three candidates for President are extremely intelligent, but that doesn’t mean that all three are tracking the truth on the ground in Iraq.\u00a0 Anyone who wants to be President of the United States needs to see Iraq without the distorting lenses of the media or partisan politics. \u00a0I would be honored to visit Iraq with Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, Senator McCain or any of their Senate colleagues.<\/span><\/p>\n I hereby offer to accompany any Senator to Iraq, whether they are pro-or anti-war, Democrat or Republican<\/strong>. \u00a0I will make this offer personally to a few select Senators as well.\u00a0 Our conversations during the visit would be on- or off-record, as they wish.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Senator Klobuchar; you’d really show yourself to be a leader if you took Yon up on this.<\/p>\n Our civilian leaders need to make decisions based on the best information available.\u00a0 The only way to learn what is really going on in Iraq is to go there and listen to our ground commanders, who know what they are doing.\u00a0 Generals Petraeus and Odierno have years of experience in Iraq, and vast knowledge of our efforts there.\u00a0 But the young soldiers who have done multiple tours in Iraq also have unique and invaluable perspectives as well.\u00a0 These young soldiers have personally witnessed the trajectory of the war shift dramatically, and can articulate those changes in concrete and specific terms.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter if a soldier is only twenty-something.\u00a0 If he or she spent two or three years in the war, that person is likely to have valuable insights.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Take the offer, A-Klo.\u00a0 While it might contradict Harry Reid’s forced pessimism…<\/p>\n …oh, wait.\u00a0 Never mind.<\/p>\n (Norm should, too, although he’s voted generally correctly over the past seven years). Senator Klobuchar: I know you’re busy – too busy to respond to your consituents, indeed! – but I think you oughtta make time for this offer from Michael Yon: One of the biggest problems with the Iraq War is that politics has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-2666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war-on-terror","tag-a-klo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76160,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2666\/revisions\/76160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/blockquote>\n
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